Features
October 29, 2024

Anna Kummerlöw – Germany’s rising star on the international solo piping stage

Anna Kummerlöw, the overal winner at 2024 Nethybridge Games

The perhaps unlikely country of Germany boasts a fast-growing piping and drumming community, and its brightest star is 35-year-old Anna Kummerlöw.

Born in Hamburg in 1989, she was initially taught by her father, Joachim Kummerlöw, a pupil of the late Duncan Johnstone of Glasgow, one of the great competitors and composers of the 1960s and ’70s.

Her mother, Heidi, also took up the pipes, and the family helped organize the Hamburg Highland Games. Now, it is one of the largest piping, drumming, and pipe band events in continental Europe, attracting Scotland-based bands like the Strathclyde Police and Tayside Police.

Anna Kummerlöw with the B-Grade Piobaireachd trophy at the 2015 Capt. John A. MacLellan Memorial Competition in Edinburgh

In the 1990s and 2000s, Germany’s Martin Keßler was a leading light in the Scottish solo and pipe band scenes, making a mark at the major gatherings until he decided to commit more to his family and professional life.

In 2005, Joachim Kummerlöw took his 15-year-old daughter to the National Piping Centre in Glasgow to confirm she was on track as a piper. She subsequently attended a summer school in Austria and received instruction from Highland Society of London Gold Medallist John-Angus Smith. Soon after, she began piobaireachd instruction with Willie McCallum.

She would spend six months studying at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and began to compete on the Scottish solo circuit, picking up prizes in B-Grade and Open competitions, including winning the Gold Medal for Piobaireachd at the 2017 Braemar Gathering.

Anna Kummerlöw with the Gold Medal for Piobaireachd at the 2017 Braemar Gathering.

Since 2014, Kummerlöw has been a pupil of Callum Beaumont in piobaireachd and light music. Over the last year, she has won numerous prizes at various contests, including London, Lonach, the Skye Gathering, and the overall trophy at Aberfeldy. She was among only two women to compete at the Argyllshire Gathering and Northern Meeting.

Anna Kummerlöw competing in Scotland for the first time, 2011.

Anna Kummerlöw was president of the Bagpipe Association of Germany (BAG) from 2017-19, serves as a judge at most of the piping competitions in Germany, and is an instructor at the Dudelsackschule, the German Bagpiping School headed by Andreas Hambsch. She teaches Latin at a school near her hometown of Kladrum in northern Germany.

pipes|drums is drawn to the unexpected and unpredictable. We have an affinity for underdogs with unusually non-Scottish names who manage to rise to the upper reaches of the piping game against the odds through dedication and commitment.

We were fortunate to speak with Anna Kummerlöw from her home in the town of Kladrum about the German piping and drumming scene, her piping background, and what keeps her motivated and successful.

Stay tuned to pipes|drums for more discussions with piping and drumming’s leading lights.

 

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